The weekly #pathfinder chat went well this week. Erik Mona (Paizo Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Dragon Magazine) and Jason Bulmahn (Editor-in-Chief of Paizo's GameMastery line) dropped by for a few hours.
Want to know how you can help Paizo?
Erik and Jason are constantly asking for your feedback. Please let them know what your hopes are for Paizo's new product lines. What are you looking forward to the most? What are you most worried about? Don't hesitate to give them your feedback. The more they hear from their customers up front, the higher the quality of these new products. They're listening. Let your voice be heard!
- - - - -
THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAT NEWS: Erik Mona has a new Foreman grill.
- - - - -
Campaign Setting Update
Work is still progressing on the history of "the world," but the broad strokes are done. While the region of Varisia is quite detailed at this point, Erik stated that the world itself is still a "work in progress."
Erik and Jason stressed that world development will be driven by adventures, both the adventure paths of the Pathfinder series and those of the GameMastery line. Paizo will not be focusing on the publication of rulebooks, but regional sourcebooks are likely and a Pathfinder "Gazetteer" will probably see print in the future. A collection of monsters from Paizo products is also likely at some point.
Erik said "We plan to have the adventures drive development of the world. We want to leave a lot of room for people to make the world their own. Pathfinder is meant to be your campaign, not ours. We're just here to help and provide a few nudges in the right places."
Jason added "It is a fine line to walk. We want to make sure we have all the tools for a good adventure and sometimes that means going beyond the core. Our solution tends to be to just include any non core info in the product. Pathfinder will cover the region of Varisia in depth and quite a bit of detail. The GameMastery modules each include a short backdrop section at the end that covers the area in which they are set. Each one of these will give a bit more background into our world. Beyond that, we are looking at ways to give more info on the world that do not burden you guys. We want to you get a good picture of our world, but making you buy 100 supplements to do it is not the way we want to go."
When asked about the setting's "feel," Erik said "Did you read 'The Whispering Cairn' in Dungeon #124? That was my attempt to stay true to the spirit of the first edition stuff without forgetting the 30 years of narrative gaming development that has happened since. So 'The Whispering Cairn' is a good example of how similar in tone they will be to the Good Old Stuff."
Beyond Varisia
Varisia is the name of just one (quite large) country in the world, it's not the world itself. It has two neighboring nations whose primary religion is the worship of rival once-human epic-level wizard gods who led their nations in endless conflict about a thousand years ago. Their names were Nex and Geb. These guys routinely used wish-level magic against each other, so their kingdoms are somewhat... unusual. (One wished for a mountain of gold.)
Erik said, "We'll probably get around to revisiting the Pathfinder locales. The back half of each Pathfinder will include a great deal of information that could be used to run a post-Runelords Varisian campaign. The Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide (free for Charter Subscribers!) contains a lot of info useful to Varisian campaigns, whether they follow the Adventure Path or not.
Bloodsworn Vale, site of W1, is set on the outskirts of Varisia. Seven Swords of Sin is set smack in the middle of the kingdom. Entombed with the Pharaohs, on the other hand, is set in an Egyptian-analogue nation called Osirion (characterized by Erik as "Pseudo-Egypt mixed with Napoleon's exploitation of ancient ruins mixed with ancient astronauts a la 'The Sirius Mystery'").
GameMastery Module Series
Some of the modules in the GameMastery line naturally follow others. D0, the FreeRPGDay module is a prequel to D1: Crown of the Kobold King. W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale is unrelated, but E1: Carnival of Tears, takes place back in Falcon's Hollow, the town featured in D0 and D1. Some of the modules are a series, while others will be stand alone.
Jason said "I think if a module does really well, we will certainly look to return to that theme or plot. Others are planned that way."
Falcon's Hollow
When asked for some information about an area outside Varisia, Jason replied: "Falcon's Hallow sits the shadow of an imposing mountain, known as Droskar's Crag.. named after an old dwarven god of toil. The small community is on the edge of civilization, a place where people go to disappear, or live a life of quiet. The town was also near to the primary battles of the Goblinblood wars, leading to a number of orphans finding themselves left in the small town."
Gods and Pantheons
When asked about the dwarven pantheon, Jason stated "They worship many of the same deities, but have some of their own as well. Droskar falls into that camp. Regional deities are likely, in some form. I think there might be different worship of the same god, depending upon where you go."
Erik added "I would allow for deities who are primarily worshiped by a single race or culture."
Jason also stated that religion isn't going to be a central focus in Paizo products. "That is not to say that there will not be adventures dealing with religion," he said. "At least.. it has not been up to this point."
There are no plans for face-to-face interaction with gods.
Magic Level
The setting is going to be comfortably mid-magic. There might be a few shops selling magic items here and there, but there most certainly will not be a chain magic item shops. The setting won't have absurd levels of magic in it. But magic is there, people who can cast 9th-level spells are there, etc.
Erik said "I was thinking about putting in a city lit by magic globes retrieved from the ocean depths or something. But that's achievable with continual flame, so it's hardly earth-shaking."
Jason added "I think we want to keep magic fantastic and not mundane, so no magic trains..."
Firearms
There will be very limited firearms if people want to use them, but they will be in no way pervasive. Basically, if you look closely at the cover of the Savage Tide Player's Guide, you'll see that there's a gun on that woman's hip. You have to look closely to notice, and in fact Paizo didn't notice themselves until it was already in print. That's a good metaphor for guns in the world.
Erik added "Varisia, incidentally, is not (to my knowledge) one of the places in the world where you might find guns."
OGL Content
When asked how much material will be designated "Open Content, Erik said "The rules and stuff will be open, but not the story or the characters or whatnot."
Future Adventure Paths
All the paths will be set in the same setting. AP2 will be set in Varisia, but future paths will be set in other regions of the world.
Novels
Erik said "We might do novels."
Goblin Plushies
Erik said "People keep mentioning goblin plushies. If it keeps up, we may have to make them."
GameMastery Card Sets
The item card sets will have items pulled directly from Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules. The first pathfinder items will appear in a new set coming out later this year called "Elements of Power." It will be the first to feature cards made specifically to suit Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules.
Jason said "Elements of Power will be a 54 card deck of elementally themed magic item cards, to go with all of our other item card sets."
Some of the modules and Pathfinder chapters will also include items from previous sets.
When asked about spell cards, Jason replied that Paizo looked inot producing some, but that they are "not quite feasible for us at the moment."
Convention Schedule
If you want to choose a convention to attend this year, GenCon is the one you should consider. Paizo's lineup is still coming together, and has not been announced yet, but Erik and Jason had some interesting things to say about their plans for the convention.
Jason said "We plan to have a huge booth there this year. We do plan to have a number of seminars during the show. For those of you coming to GenCon this year, we will have a fantastic delve event at our booth, with rooms designed by various Paizo staff. Fabulous prizes and grisely death can be yours, with a board in back to chart the carnage. To top it off, the rooms in the delve have been used to create the GM module, Seven Swords of Sin. Those who do well in the delve will earn keys, which can be tried on the Paizo treasure chest, full of fabulous prizes."
Submission Guidelines
Jason said "We are working out submission guidelines, and hope to have some answers on that front soon. We are very committed to getting new and upcoming writers into our line. Suffice to say, we are looking to make sure that we keep ways open for people to contribute."
Yeah? Well, how do you know?
Oh, wait... never mind.
Ditto. Thanks.
No problem, all.
As an aside, we're having internet trouble out here. I don't have email or irc access. Until it gets sorted out, if you're in #pathfinder and have a log worth noting, please save it and/or email it to me at ephealy (at) ephealy (dot) com.
Also, if anyone is interested in compiling some of these into a FAQ, it would be helpful. People seem to be asking the same questions over and over and over again. A FAQ might help mitigate that.
Or not.
I'd do it, but have not the time.
As an aside, we're having internet trouble out here. I don't have email or irc access. Until it gets sorted out, if you're in #pathfinder and have a log worth noting, please save it and/or email it to me at ephealy (at) ephealy (dot) com.
If anyone saved the log from this week's Tuesday night chat, please email to me: ephealy (at) ephealy (dot) com
I dont have a transcript but i've been breaking up each of the BLOG's into seperate PDF files for me own use to make them easier to read and archive.
Director of Games
|
As an aside, we're having internet trouble out here. I don't have email or irc access. Until it gets sorted out, if you're in #pathfinder and have a log worth noting, please save it and/or email it to me at ephealy (at) ephealy (dot) com.If anyone saved the log from this week's Tuesday night chat, please email to me: ephealy (at) ephealy (dot) com
I am pretty sure that someone took a log last night. I am not 100% sure who did though.
Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager
Hey all, Rick Miller sent me a log. I'll get a summary up asap.